The Purple Martin: Mama's Rail Fence Quilt

Here's another quilt that I made up as I went along, following the general "rail fence" pattern. I gave it to my Mother-in-law.

Easy Rail Fence Quilt

Ingredients:

3/4 yard each of light, medium and dark fabric

Quilt batting (full sized)

3 yards of fabric for the back of your quilt (or backing in quilter's terms)

Binding (click here for my favorite quilt binding video tutorial)

Rotary cutter and mat

(Use 1/4" seam throughout and press your seams open)

Step 1) Pick 3 fabrics that you like: light, medium, and dark. Purchase an equal amount of each. A 3/4 yard of each should give you enough for a nice-sized throw. Purchase more if you wish to make a bigger quilt.

Step 2) Wash, dry, and iron all your fabrics

Step 3) Cut your fabric short-side to 2 1/2" strips (if your fabric is 44" wide, then your strips will be 44"x2 1/2")

Step 4) Sew your light strips to your medium strips

Step 5) Sew your dark strips to your medium/light strips (should be light, medium, dark)

Step 6) Cut the long strips into squares. Your strips should be 6 1/2" wide. Cut the long side 6 1/2" so that your squares are even.

Step 7) Arrange your quilt squares in a pattern that pleases you. Below are some pictures of ideas of different ways to arrange the light/medium/dark squares.

Step 8) Once you have an arrangement that you love, sew your blocks into rows

Step 9) Sew your rows together

Your quilt top is now complete

Step 10) Prepare your backing. Cut it in half and sew the long sides together to make your backing fabric big enough for your quilt.

Step 11) Layer your backing, batting, and quilt top and safety pin it every few inches

Step 12) Quilt your quilt. You can pick a fancy, curly pattern, but for mine, I just stitched in the ditch; aka stitch through all layers of your pinned quilt "sandwich", following the seams that run along the top of your quilt.

Step 13) Bind your quilt. Click here for my favorite video tutorial for this often, confusing step.

Ideas for different ways to arrange the Rail Fence squares: